Stage 1 Requirements
(Microsoft Power Platform® Community App Challenge)
The Travel Request Approval App
Let’s imagine, we have the following organizational structure:
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There are 5 Roles: Staff,, reporting to Line Manager, who might report to a higher up Line Manager (and so on) or directly to Department Manager, who reports to CEO.
There is also a CFO who also reports to CEO
as shown in the organizational diagram
Here is the list of the “simple requirements” for the App:
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A Staff member fills a Travel Request form with these fields: Purpose, Travel Start Date, Travel End Date and Travel Cost.
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The Request is submitted for Level 1 Approval to the Line Manager who can either Approve or Reject the Travel Dates and Purpose. No need to provide a reason.
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If Line Manager Approves, the Request is sent to the Department Manager and CFO simultaneously for Level 2 Approval.
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Department Manager can Approve or Reject the request and has to provide the Reason behind the decision.
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CFO can either Approve or Reject the Travel Cost. There is no need to provide a reason.
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In Level 3 Approval, CEO receives the Travel Request if and when both Department Manager and CFO have Approved their part.
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CEO can Approve or Reject, or can ask Department Manager to rephrase the Approval Reason to make it more convincing (Rework).
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If Rework is asked for, request goes back to Department Manager who can then change the Approval Reason to submit it back to CEO for reconsideration.
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If either Line Manager, Department Manager, CFO or CEO Rejects the request, then inform Staff via email that it was Rejected and set Request Status to Rejected for future reference.
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If CEO Approves, then inform Staff via email that it was Approved and set Request Status to Approved.
That is what Business wants. Well, it seems “simple” enough. Nothing fancy or complicated is being asked for. Time to build/make/create/author the solution!
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Ready to Start? Things to consider
The first decision to be made is to choose where to store all the Travel Request data, the Approval data, as well as Employee hierarchical data.
There are various options:
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SharePoint® List(s)
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Dataverse®
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Dataverse for Teams®
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Azure SQL®
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Other?
Depending on repository choice, then a decision needs to be made for the UI:
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Power Apps® (Canvas Apps)
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Power Virtual Agents
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Power Pages
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Dataverse® (Model-Driven Apps)
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Combination of above
Be careful when choosing the base technology, as the architecture should withstand growth, since there will be new requirements in Stages 2 and 3. So Think Ahead.
Also, please jot down the overall time that was spent to create the solution, as this info would be needed when submitting it.
